The Indigo Thief

by Budgett, Jay

  I wrinkled my nose in disgust. The acrid stink of sewage still clung to hairs in my nostrils from my previous escapade. “We almost there?” I asked. Mila nodded and shined the light toward a fork in the tunnel. We turned right.

  “Left was the Light House,” I said. It was more of a question than a statement. Phoenix nodded slightly, but Mila raised her eyebrows. “Or a dead end,” she reminded me. “Whether or not we could make it past the walls, the only thing that would be waiting at its end is death.”

  “But you haven’t tried?”

  Mila rolled her eyes. “It’s enough we know where the Feds are. We don’t need to serve ourselves up to them on a silver platter.”

  “You don’t think they knew about the mansion? How did they find Madam Revleon, then?”

  Phoenix tightened his jaw. “We should’ve been more careful. We shouldn’t have let her get so comfortable. She should’ve known to keep the lights off and the curtains closed in that old house.”

  “You can’t just put someone in the shadows and expect no one to find them,” I said. “You can’t expect to hide people simply by turning off the lights—it doesn’t work that way. It’s only good for so long.” I thought of Mom, and how the Caravites might be hiding her, and waited for his reaction. His face was cold, but a flash of surprise flickered across Mila’s face.

  Phoenix stared at the tunnel’s worn floor. “She wasn’t in the shadows,” he said. “She was in the shadows of the shadows. The darkest part of the city’s darkest district.”

  “You really like the dark, don’t you, Phoenix?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I prefer firelight.”

  Mila slapped the glow stick against the tunnel’s wall. “You girls want to argue all day,” she said, “or are you ready to move?”

  Phoenix stared at me firmly, his eyes unblinking. “We’re ready.”

  We’d reached a dead end. Another set of metal bars ran up the wall like a ladder. I felt the air in my lungs thin here; the moisture must have been dissipating up the makeshift chimney. “Where does this go?” I asked.

  Mila began climbing. “Up,” she said simply.

  “South Atlantic,” said Phoenix.

  I shivered, remembering the documentaries we’d watched in middle school about South Atlantic crime rates. In them, drug addicts convulsed on street corners and stores were bordered up with bulletproof glass rather than wood. The underbelly of Newla, the documentary’s host had called it.

  “Don’t look down,” reminded Mila as we climbed. “Long way to fall.”

  “Thanks for that,” I said. Then to Phoenix: “Is there another city district we could go to instead? Maybe one that’s a little safer? A little less sketchy?”

  He laughed. “You’re crawling out of the ground from a lava tube. I think you can manage a ‘little sketchy.’” He had a point.

  At the top of the chimney was a landing surrounded by concrete walls. On one side was a black square door, like the wrong side of a bank vault. Phoenix grabbed the glow stick from Mila and twisted a series of black knobs on the door. It sprang open, and the sweet smell of pomegranate incense mixed with lemon—and maybe grapefruit—burned my nose.

  Phoenix crawled through the doorway, and Mila and I did the same. A circle of wide-eyed civilians stared in silent awe as we emerged into the back room of a shop covered in tie-dyed fabrics. Phoenix waved off their stares.

  “As you were,” he said. “You are merely hallucinating. Excellent choice of drugs—very potent. Thank your dealer.”

  The group nodded, and a guy in a pink bandana promptly fell asleep. Phoenix shut the vault door behind us and covered it with fabric. A woman in red sunglasses stared at a bag of pills she held in her hand. “We’ve gotta get more of these,” she said.

  We hurried from the back room into the store’s main area. A thin layer of smoke swirled in the air as we moved past chunky lava lamps. The cashier behind the counter stared at us with wide eyes.

  “Narnia,” whispered Mila in his ear. “It’s real.” He shut his eyes, nodded, and ran to join his companions. A sign over the register read, in green, yellow, and red letters: “Dredson’s Divine Herbal Incenses.”

  Phoenix tossed me a pair of sunglasses and a black poncho from behind the counter, and we exited by the front door. It was nighttime, and the fluorescent streetlights were momentarily blinding after our eyes had grown accustomed to the glow stick’s soft light and the Skelewick street lamps. We kept our heads down and merged with the crowds that hurried along the cobbled sidewalks.

  On the next street corner, a man groaned and rocked himself back and forth, his arms across his chest and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. I looked away. “Is it always like this—busy?”

  Phoenix shook his head. “There’s a car show this weekend, and that’s where we’re headed.”

  “A car show in South Atlantic?”

  “Mostly stolen,” he said. “Which is why we’re here: no better place for us to get a car. They’ve already made fake plates for them to put them in the show. If one goes missing again… well, it’s not exactly like the new owners can file a police report.”

  Phoenix always seemed to be one step ahead.

  We moved along, following Phoenix, and soon came upon a series of white canvas tents towering over a street blocked off with orange cones. I wondered how far our sunglasses and ponchos would get us, and simultaneously prayed that most of the city’s cops were still back at the Morier Mansion fighting the fire. Phoenix slipped a guard at the gates several bills, and we pushed through into the crowded tents.

  “Pick a car,” said Phoenix.

  I pointed to a yellow one on a pedestal, with windshields that slid open in lieu of doors.

  “Too high-profile,” he said, shaking his head. “Try another. On the floor, preferably.”

  I pointed to a black jeep in the corner. Its window tint was the same shade as its paint. The car was largely a shadow under the tent’s bursting fluorescent lights. Phoenix liked shadows.

  “Not bad,” he said, turning to Mila. “You see it, Meels?”

  Meels had already started toward it, and we pushed through the crowd after her. When we arrived at the jeep, I heard a clank and saw the metal boot attached to the car’s front wheel roll off. Phoenix hopped in the passenger side, and I climbed in the back.

  Mila adjusted a mirror and glanced back at me from the driver’s seat. “Ready?” she asked, and the car’s engine roared. I felt a twinge of pride in my chest as its lights flickered on—glad to have been of some use to the group for once.

  I shook my head. These two were not my friends; they were murderers. I should have felt no pride in being “of use” to them.

  The jeep surged forward, carving a path through the crowd. People ran screaming as we tore through the white tent, swerving around both cars and civilians. There was a concession stand at one end of the tent, and Mila aimed the jeep right for it. Workers dove screaming from the stand as we slammed directly into it.

  Mila held her foot on the gas and the engine groaned. Finally, the wooden stand splintered into pieces us as we roared ahead.

  A bit farther on sat a stack of metal boxes that flashed and hummed, and Mila crashed right into it. Sparks flew like bolts of lightning, and the jeep moaned loudly as its engine died. I saw bundles of sparking wire hanging along the car’s edge, and then the tent’s lights flickered and went dead. It seemed we’d crashed into its main power supply. I guessed this was why Mila didn’t usually drive.

  “Get out,” said Phoenix. The airbag hung limply in front of his face. “Now, Kai.”

  Mila’s head lay smashed against the steering wheel. I pushed open the door and climbed out, dodging the sparking wires and twisted metal as I fled. Phoenix quickly joined me, Mila’s limp body dangling from his arms.

  “Pick a car,” he said again. Screams sounded throughout the tent, and engines roared as other cars were freed from metal boots under the cover of dark.

  H
ere and there, cars sprang to life, and their headlights lit the tent, illuminating the chaos that now surrounded us. I immediately pointed to a red convertible in the corner. Phoenix quickly cut its boot and then keyed in. He laid Mila in the back, pointed me to the passenger’s seat, and then started the engine. Mila groaned in the back. Cars raced alongside ours as we joined the fray.

  I realized then that Phoenix had never intended to drive off in the jeep: the crash had been part of his plan from the beginning. He’d intended for Mila to slam into the generators and knock out the power, enabling the other cars to be stolen. These were all just movements in his well-orchestrated symphony. The guards could’ve stopped one car from fleeing from the tent, but they couldn’t stop them all. You couldn’t stop a parade. You couldn’t stop a symphony. And Phoenix was the conductor.

  Away from the tent, we glided along the neighborhood’s worn streets, eventually merging onto the highway that led us out of the South Atlantic district, and then out of Newla altogether.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Suburban Islands,” said Phoenix, his eyes darting back and forth as we weaved through traffic. “We’ll have to stop at a border station in Maui. Should be there in a couple of hours. Go ahead and sleep, Kai. Get some rest while you can.” Mila snored in the back, and he winked. “I’ll keep my eyes open,” he said. “For all of us. Don’t you worry.”

  I watched as he ran his hand along the gun’s length in his pocket. Rest was not an option. If I was going to live—and I needed to if I was to save Mom and Charlie—then from here on out, I would have to keep my eyes open. To close them would mean darkness—and in Phoenix’s world, darkness meant death.

  Chapter 29

  Traffic in the Pacific Southwestern Tube slowed to a crawl at the Maui border station. Unlike the Pacific Northwestern, which contained only subway tracks, the Pacific Southwestern had wide lanes for cars and the commuter traffic that moved between Maui and Newla. A line of cars thirty vehicles deep had formed ahead of our red convertible. Mila cursed under her breath, and I pretended to wipe nonexistent sleep from my eyes. I’d been feigning sleep for the past three hours.

  “Sorry,” said Phoenix. “It’s not usually like this.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. I thought of Charlie’s face—her smile that wrinkled to one side when she spoke, her big blue eyes that glowed brighter than any other vaccinated person I’d met. “Not like I had anywhere else to be.” I lied—I could’ve been saving Charlie.

  “No hot dates? But you’re a wanted man, Mr. Bradbury…”

  I felt sick to my stomach. Here he was, joking with me, when he knew eventually he’d have to kill me. “Turns out,” I said, “the Feds like bad boys more than girls do.”

  Mila smirked. “Not true.”

  “Yeah?” I turned in my seat. She had a bump in the center of her forehead from where she’d struck the airbag. “Then how come you aren’t back at Dredson’s Divine Herbal Incenses? Some bad boys there, if I ever saw them.”

  “Burnouts aren’t bad boys,” she said. “They’re just burnouts.”

  “Maybe I’ll be a burnout one day. Once all this is done.”

  “Go ahead,” she said. “But it’d be a waste of your lungs.”

  It was the first time Mila had paid me a compliment. “Are you saying I’ve got good lungs, Miss Vachowski?”

  She rolled her eyes, and I grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Nah,” she said, “just a fact.”

  “It’s a compliment,” said Phoenix, smiling. I felt sick again.

  Suddenly the car behind us slammed into our bumper, and we lurched forward. Phoenix tried to hit the brakes, but the momentum shoved us forward, crumpling our front fender against the car bumper ahead of us. Phoenix gave a signal and we threw on our sunglasses. He jammed his arms against his side door, but it was too crumpled to budge. I tried my handle. Jammed, too.

  Phoenix pulled something from his pocket and pressed it against the windshield, which immediately shattered into tiny pieces. We crawled out.

  The Tube’s familiar glass curve hung overhead. Agents were stepping out of the border patrol stations wearing yellow and orange jumpsuits with X’s across their fronts, just below the letters “M.T.C.” Agents of the Ministry of Transportation & Commerce.

  “Fantastic,” muttered Mila. “Absolutely fantastic…” She pulled her poncho’s hood over her head and kept her eyes down as the agents approached.

  Phoenix glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Ministry of TC,” he whispered. “Also known as the Ministry of Total Crap.”

  I stifled a laugh as the agents approached a truck driver six cars ahead. We were part of an eight-car pile-up that blocked an entire lane. Around us, cars swerved to stay ahead of traffic.

  The agents moved along the line, hopping from car to car, collecting license and registration as they passed. “What do we do?” I asked Phoenix.

  “Just keep your head down, and trust me.”

  A chubby and slightly balding agent approached us. “License and registration, please.”

  Behind his sunglasses, Phoenix smiled brilliantly. “Of course, of course.” He placed a hand on the agent’s shoulder. “But you see, my friend, our glove box is jammed.”

  The agent pushed off Phoenix’s hand. “You can’t get it out?”

  Phoenix reached for his wallet. “I’m afraid the impact was too great.” The agent pinned Phoenix’s hands behind his back.

  “I’ll have to take you into custody, then. All three of you, that is. This car could be stolen for all we know,” he said as he cuffed our hands. “Just had a big riot down in South Atlantic.”

  “You don't say,” said Phoenix. “Wasn’t there a car show there this week?”

  The agent nodded suspiciously. “Yeah. Some idiot tried to run off with a jeep. Ended up crashing into a generator. Serves the low-life right, if you ask me.”

  The agent led us to the Maui border office for the Pacific Southwestern Tube, where he parked us on a bench and then disappeared into the back. The office was littered with pictures of baby seals, tossing their heads as they swam through the water, whiskers drenched and brown eyes wide and saucer-like. Phoenix tilted his head toward the pictures. “Shame they went extinct.”

  “I always thought there were more farther out at sea?” I said.

  Phoenix shook his head. “That’s just what they say when they don’t want you to know the truth.”

  I thought of all the things Phoenix had said to me because he didn’t want me knowing the truth.

  At last the agent who had cuffed us trotted in from the back room. “The commissioner will see you now. And for goodness’ sake, take off your sunglasses. We’re inside.”

  Phoenix smiled, but made no attempt to take off the glasses. As we followed the agent into the back room, I saw that Mila still had her head down and her hood up. Silently, I wished she’d take off the stupid hood. The sunglasses were bad enough. The hood raised even more suspicions.

  A man in his forties sat at a small table, and pointed toward three folding chairs on the opposite side. “Take a seat,” he said. A brown mustache curled around the sides of his nose. He wore the same orange suit as the others, except that his had the word “Commissioner” embroidered along his back. Behind the commissioner sat what I guessed was a two-way mirror.

  “Names?” he barked, not even lifting his eyes from his notebook.

  “Henry Smith,” said Phoenix without hesitation.

  “Laura Williams,” said Mila just as quickly.

  The commissioner looked at her oddly, and she dropped her head. He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “And you are?”

  “Uh, Chester.” I cursed myself for not choosing a common name like the others. They’d figure me out in a second; Chester would be an easy name to verify as false in the system. Henry and Laura, on the other hand, were much more common, and might get bogged in the system. I crossed my fingers and prayed Phoenix had a pla
n.

  “First name Uh,” said the commissioner, “ and last name Chester?”

  My bottom lip quivered from nerves. “No, no,” I said. “It’s Chester Mc—Munchies. Chester McMunchies.”

  We were screwed. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mila mutter “Shit.”

  “You get that?” said the commissioner toward the ceiling—the room was miked. He put a finger to his ear and nodded. “Right then,” he said. “We’re looking the three of you up in the database.”

  The room was shrinking. My heart felt tight against my chest. The commissioner cracked his neck. “Let’s take the glasses off, then, shall we?”

  Phoenix feigned a struggle with the cuffs. “I can’t,” he said, raising his voice to the rich octave that signaled one was a spoiled brat. “It’s too hard.”

  “Christ’s sake…” muttered the commissioner. He reached for Phoenix’s glasses. At the last second, Phoenix jerked his head to the side, and the commissioner stumbled onto the table. I imagined his colleagues laughing on the opposite side of the window. He pulled himself up. “What the hell was that?”

  Phoenix pouted below the dark glasses. “You can’t just grab them,” he said. “They’re Zwallens.”

  Zwallens was one of the largest luxury brands on this side of Maui. Sunglasses made by Zwallens could easily run into the thousands. The cheap red sticker that ran along the side of Phoenix’s glasses told me they were definitely not Zwallens, but I doubted the commissioner would know the difference. Zwallens were mostly just marketed to people in their twenties; people the commissioner’s age were encouraged not to wear them.

  The red convertible, the fake sunglasses—Phoenix was creating a persona: that of a spoiled rich kid from the wealthy suburbs of Newla. I wondered if the name “Henry Smith” he’d given was real or fake. Maybe it’d been someone he’d known in a past life.

  Phoenix weakly lifted his wrists again. “Maybe you could unlock them? They’re making my arms terribly sore, and my chiropractor says—”