We approach the train station with as much dignity as possible, given the fact that Rabbit wears nothing but a jacket and tight, white underpants. We’re both dripping wet. The station is small despite its proximity to Fort Columbia. There aren’t many soldiers or residents lining up to take cross country trips, so the traffic from the base has never been great. 

The station is equipped with the bare necessities of any high speed transit launching point: a terminal to purchase fare, a bathroom equipped with a scanner to gain entrance, and a vending machine where you can buy basic items like toothpaste, snacks, hygiene products, small medical kits and vials of bright green Swamp. 

Swamp is a cheap knock-off of the magical elixir Prothero doles out to all the residents, soldiers and officers on base to ward off NV. As far as I can tell, Swamp is a placebo. Nobody I know has lived a longer, fuller life because of it. Prothero lets ConFoods manufacture it because if there’s an alternative to the government issued inoculations exists on the market, their pretense at a monopoly can go undisputed. 

It tastes as awful as it looks. I should know—my parents used to feed me this crap all the time. At first they would make me take the dose orally, right out of the vial. But I rebelled enough that they started sneaking it into my food—green eggs and ham style. My mother would whip it up into our breakfast food like we wouldn’t notice the slightly-off color. Logan would always be the first to complain because he was a brat. Man, I miss him. The Swamp trauma probably explains my aversion to all kinds of breakfast foods now, as an “adult.” 

“Do people still buy that crap?” I poke a finger at the vending machine display. 

“Of course they do. God, I’m starving." He slumps his shoulders and head up against the machine in an attempt to look as pathetic as possible. 

It works. 

“You do look a little emaciated. I wasn’t gonna say anything."

I fish around in my pocket for a few of the stipend payments I’ve stashed in there. I scan them through the machine and tell Rabbit to pick anything he wants. He selects a chocolate bar and a bag of cheese sour cream potato chips. On the other side of the vending machine is a bench and above that, under the cover of a glass roof, a monitor displays the next arrival time of the westbound train. 

Train #0082 will be docking in precisely five minutes and thirteen seconds. The information is translated into three different languages below, along with an icon to scan and read the text in hundreds of additional languages. 

We sit on the bench and split the meager dinner of grease, corn, and sugar. It tastes amazing. Pleasant notes of exhaustion sing in my brain, coursing up and down my legs and arms as soon as I’m done eating. The weight of the food in my stomach makes me sleepy.

“I could sleep for twenty hours,” I say, licking the last crumbs of orange cheese stain off my fingers.

Rabbit heaves a sigh and clicks on his band, scrolling through the waves with a slender finger. I watch the colors roll and change on his read-out. They cast some measure of warmth and normalcy around us. Look, it’s the waves. The real world still exists. We didn’t break everything. 

Just ourselves.  

“Nothing about us yet,” he sighs again, with an undertone of relief in his voice that soothes my spirits a little. Rabbit makes me wary, but it sure is nice to have someone in this mess with me. 

“Good, that’ll make boarding the train easier.”

Rabbit closes his eyes and leans back to rest his head on the bench like he’s tucking into bed. He’s snoring lightly by the time the train pulls up at the station with the whispery squeal of brakes. I shake him and his head rolls, eyes snapping open. 

“What—what’s happening?”

“It’s here,” I say. “Let’s head to the back car.” 

Rabbit unfolds his legs, stretches his arms over his head with a wide yawn and hops off the bench. I follow him—Toto tucked in my armpit—depositing the food wrappers in a garbage receptacle next to the vending machine. 

The train is a sleek, gunmetal grey machine swimming between Mexico City and western Canada, cutting a path through California, Oregon, and Washington state. This particular train is comprised of one boarding car, five passenger cars, five sleeper cars, a Commons car, a dining car, and one luggage car. Most passengers board at the front car, registering for their fare and scanning in so Prothero can track their movements. 

We make our way towards the eastern end of the platform, where Armando—my contact—oversees the luggage compartment, ensuring all items meet the federal requirements for travel safety. He runs a pretty good racket stealing tech and other valuables from the passengers and selling them on the black market to soldiers, residents and other unmentionables passing through this section of the world. I met Armando on my first trip to Portland, back when life was simple and I was nothing but a common drug dealer instead of a murderous fugitive. The good old days. 

It was almost too easy to exchange Salt for frequent passage into Portland, Oregon—the second most densely populated city in the region—where the bulk of my customers reside. Selling drugs to residents and soldiers didn’t end up being nearly as lucrative as establishing this second client base. Armando is one of the key figures in ferrying me to and fro without needing to scan in my coordinates or spend any extra stipend allotment on transportation fees. He’s quiet—content with his lot in life—and I’m sure he has a crush on me. All of these factors are going to work in our favor tonight, winning us passage aboard this train. 

Armando pokes his head out the sliding doors and waves at me. Then he spies barely clothed Rabbit following close on my heels and the pleasant, amiable smile drops off his face. I hustle towards him. Rabbit needs to get inside the train to avoid anymore stares. We reach the luggage car and hurry inside under Armando’s watchful gaze. We take seats on some particularly hard suitcases and I fish a packet of Salt out of Toto. Armando retrieves it from me—a hard, irritated look clouding his face. 

“Who’s this guy?” Armando asks, jabbing a finger in Rabbit’s direction.

Rabbit squirms on the luggage, attempting to drag my too-small jacket down over his underwear as much as humanly possible. The tin box bulges against his stomach and I silently curse him for everything—Armando’s suspicion, the tin, our wet clothes. Everything. 

“Just a friend. A really dumb friend. This gang jumped us on our way to the train. They grabbed my bag, knocked us around, and tossed us in the river.” 

“Why is he naked?” Armando asks, not meeting Rabbit’s eyes. 

“I’m not naked,” Rabbit interjects.

“OK, why is he in his underwear?”

“Bad trip, too much Ecto—started ripping his clothes off and calling himself ‘The Dragon King.’ The guys took everything—our guns, our knives, our packs. I’ve gotta meet up with someone in Portland or I’d go straight back to base. You’re gonna help us, right?” I drop a few saccharine notes into my voice near the end of the story, playing on his affection for me. 

“I don’t know. This is weird. I would prefer it if this guy was wearing pants.” Armando finally looks over at Rabbit, taking in the cut on his head, the deep bags under his eyes. He looks over at me, the bruises on my face from Clinton, the cut lip. 

“He didn’t rough you up, did he?” Armando asks, moving in close on Rabbit, menacing. 

“No. He saved me from drowning in the river once the cold water sobered him up. He’s a good guy Armando. Dumb, but good. We can trust him. Right?” I nudge Rabbit in the ribs and he nods slowly, returning the steady gaze of Armando.

“Huh. Well, you guys do look pretty beat up. I’m glad you’re okay Scarlett. You need to be more careful. There are bad people out there,” Armando says.

“It wasn’t a fair fight. We can usually take care of ourselves.”

“When we haven’t been doing drugs,” Rabbit intervenes. “I should’ve stayed away from the hard stuff. Ecto really does a number on me.”

“Yeah. I don’t touch that stuff. Too weird. Salt—“Armando flicks the baggy on his palm and smiles contentedly—“is the good shit.”

“And I always bring you the best stuff.” I climb off the luggage and approach him, squeezing Armando’s broad shoulder. He chuckles warmly. 

I glance back at Rabbit, who averts his eyes and folds his hands in his lap. Good. Stay quiet. Armando reaches up and grabs my chin, tipping it to hold my eyes. 

“About that. You know what an extra fare means.” A playful twinkle lights up Armando’s face. 

Rabbit clears his throat and out of the corner of my eye, I see him shift closer to us. Just what I need—a male companion to play hero and get us killed because of a misguided sense of honor. I cut a hard look at him, but the scowl doesn’t drop off his face and his demeanor doesn’t change.

“Just relax guy,” Armando says with a smile. “Keep your pants on.”

I reach into Toto and grab an extra baggy of Salt. Armando holds out his palm, his smile going wider. “That’s all I wanted. A little something extra.”

Armando walks to the luggage car entrance. “If you want clothes, that’ll be extra too. Times are tough.”

“Sure are. Thanks Mando. You’re the best luggage attendant I know.”

Armando laughs, “I’m the only luggage attendant you know.”

I put a finger to my lips with a wide smile. He winks and the door slides shut behind him, locking us in the car, swaying slightly on our feet along with at least fifty passenger bags. 

A sigh blows past my lips. Finally safe. Finally alone and safe. Except for Rabbit.

“Do you think we could steal some pants now?” he asks. 

A chuckle escapes me. He offers a quick smile in return, so I smile back at him, the corners of my mouth aching with the pressure. For a moment, we are more than allies. We are friends. But then, the moment passes. Rabbit hops off the luggage and we set ourselves to the task of examining the contents of the bags. We work systematically, from the front of the car to the rear, each taking a side. It’s mindless busy work and I can’t speak for Rabbit but my brain turns to the horrible events of the evening so quickly I’m almost fetal within a few seconds. This isn’t going to work. I can’t do this. Not without drugs. I’m considering the vial of Ecto buried in the bowels of my stuffed toy dog when Rabbit clears his throat. 

   "How’s this?" He asks. “Do I look normal?”

He’s chosen a pair of gray pants—the cut and style similar to our resident issued uniforms—combined with a long sleeved black hemp shirt and a hooded jacket. These clothes are going to cost us. More Salt. We’ve barely gained any ground and already we’re running through our supplies like water. 

“Normal for you,” I say, but there’s hardly any enthusiasm or spark in my words.

Rabbit meets my eyes and instead of offering a quick smile, his face and body sag under the weight of my gaze. All the adrenaline is leaving us. Now we’re nothing but empty shells.

Safe, empty shells. Safer than we’ve been in the last two hours. Warm, sheltered, traveling. I return to the spot I left Toto and retrieve the baggy of supplies. The liquid vial of Ecto will be the quickest way to get where I want to go. Rabbit watches me. Always watching with his dark, crow eyes. Maybe he’s not a scarecrow. Maybe he’s a big, evil bird sent from Prothero to watch over me. Watch every move I make and report it back to them. 

He moves out of my view and my eyes blur and then all I can see are the horrible things from earlier this evening.

It’s dark outside. Night time. Eleni’s face crumples and falls out of my view. My finger scrapes against the trigger of the plasma rifle and a bullet fires out of the barrel. Clinton’s skull blows apart and blood and brains—

“You sleepwalking Buford?” Rabbit asks. His steady, calm voice pulls me from the daze I was falling into. 

“Screw you."

“No thanks.” Rabbit quick smiles. He holds a bag up and tosses it at my feet. “I put this together. It’s got all the supplies we’ll need—basic toiletries and RFID free clothing. I scanned the clothes to be sure. No one was packing any military grade weaponry so no EMP devices. But there was at least one high caliber taser. And a package of licorice.”

He pulls a plastic baggy of Red Vines from his back pocket, removes one and takes a bite off it. He crosses his arms—the candy hanging from his mouth like a cigarette—waiting for me to be suitably impressed. 

“Great job. I’ve got dibs on the Commons.” I scoop up the bag just in time to see the smile drop off his face.

“No way. We can go together—it’s a Commons.”

“You think it’s a great idea for both of us to wander around together? Two national service members with Prothero tech on our bodies?”

“It’s safer if we’re together. Besides, I need to do something in the Commons. I was hoping you would help me with something?" He fidgets with the rosary on his wrist as he asks, spinning the beads around his skin.

“Oh please lord, tell me it has nothing to do with your genitals. We need to make a rule—”

“No. Jesus. Not like that. Something completely nonsexual. Can I show you when we get in there?” 

“If you must.”

I wave Armando and busy myself with tallying up the contents of the pack Rabbit put together. It’s surprisingly well stocked. There are a few things, including a sewing kit and a pair of night vision goggles, that I’m impressed he had the foresight to steal. The big prize is probably a small collection of kinetic tools. Tech people need them—Rabbit will need them. I wonder if the GPS on his band is working again. His long sleeved shirt is folded down to hide his wrist from view. 

“What’s going on with that?” I nod towards his arm. 

He shrugs. “It’s transmitting. My only hope is we’re moving too fast at 100 mph to pinpoint an exact location. When we stop in Portland I need to find underground tech. You know someone?”

I nod. Armando shows up at the door a moment later. I’m holding the bag open so he takes it from me with a sour face. 

“This is gonna cost an arm and a leg,” he mutters, poking around inside.

“Really?” I ask with an eyebrow cocked. 

He grows shy under my gaze and hands the pack back to me. 

“I dunno. We’ll talk about it later. I can sneak you both into the kitchen if you’re hungry.”

Rabbit opens his mouth, but I speak up first. “How about the Commons instead?”

Armando steps aside in the door frame so we can file past. The path to the Commons car takes us directly through the dining area and I regret turning down food as my stomach rumbles. A smattering of train guests linger in the car sipping coffee or alcohol and we spot a few remaining dinner plates on some of the tables. I watch with a smirk as Rabbit reaches out and swipes two fried chicken drumsticks off an abandoned plate as we pass. He folds them in a napkin and pockets them without missing a beat in his step. 

When we reach the Commons car, Armando clears his throat and taps on the door. No response. He peeks his head in and checks around. 

“The place is all yours, Scarlett.” Armando gestures through the door. 

“Thanks.” I saunter in and Rabbit trails behind. I close the door on Armando’s frowning face. 

Rabbit chuckles as he plops the bag down onto the counter near the sinks. “That guy has the world’s biggest blue balls—you know that right?”

“Duly noted,” I mutter, heading towards a shower stall. Even though I’m a little more comfortable and dry now, the hot, steamy water calls to me. 

“Wait a second—this comes first.” Rabbit pulls out a small black bag from the pack and sets it on the counter. 

“Injecting Flash is a nasty habit Santiago.” I join him at the sink. 

“There’s only one drug addict here Buford. And it’s not me.” He unzips the baggy and dumps out the contents

It’s an electric razor. I swallow and look at our combined reflections in the mirror. 

“I’m guessing this isn’t for your five o’ clock shadow,” I say, picking it up. He shakes his head. 

I click it on. When the razor surges to life with a dull gurgle, the reality of our situation hits me like a wall. We are fugitives from Prothero. Len and Clinton are dead. We left behind our entire lives to take a vial of my best friend’s blood to a terrorist organization in Mexico City. I’m standing here in a train car with a tall, lanky kid I don’t even trust, about to shave his head so people won’t immediately recognize us when our images are splattered across every wave sent and received across the continent. Hell, across the globe. 

I grab the blood vial from the pocket of my pants and set it on the sink counter in front of us. He picks up the buzzing razor. 

“I’ll do this,” he says.

“But I thought you wanted my help?”

“Not with this.” He pulls up the back end of his floppy, shaggy locks and points to the nape of his neck—to where the RFID is implanted near his spine.

“I need you to cut this out.”

“Jesus.”

“Give me a second,” Rabbit says. He takes a deep breath and rolls the buzzing razor from his scalp to where the RFID is buried, cutting an ugly path through his stupid sexy hair. I’ll admit he has attractive hair. Had attractive hair.

“Wow,” I say, and now I’m gently patting his shoulder in an awkward comforting gesture. I’m guessing his head shaving trauma is minimal at best, but in a weird way the hair defined Rabbit—aloof, intriguing, with a bit of mysterious smolder. 

It takes about three minutes for him to shave completely bald. His big ears are prominent now, nicely balancing out his large nose and accentuating his already slightly comical, gawky look. His ears were always hidden with all that hair in the way. He still has the Rabbit scowl pinching his face, but he looks older. Harder. Tougher. He looks like a fugitive. 

“Nice ears.” I smirk.

“Shut up. They’re huge.” He runs a finger down the lobe of one ear with a grimace.

“Well you know what they say about guys with big ears.” I run a hand over the dark, smooth skin on his head. “They’ve got big brains.”

Rabbit shudders, breathes a long, trembling sigh and catches my hand in his own. 

“Now it’s your turn.” He locks eyes with me in the mirror.

I glance down at the nape of his bare neck. There’s nothing indicating where the RFID chip might be hidden. It’s probably tinier than the naked human eye can see. I wish Len had destroyed it before she...I wish Len were still alive. I wish she were here. She could’ve fixed everything. Instead, I’m stuck with useless Rabbit Santiago and his many sad faces. 

“Am I supposed to chew this out, or do you have some surgical tools for me?” I ask, tapping on his spine.

“I don’t mean the RFID.” He presses the electric razor into my hand. 

I drop it into the sink and back two steps away from him, shaking my head. 

“No way.”

“Scarlett.”

“I don’t wanna hear it. You know how long it took me to grow this hair out after they chopped it all off for the camp? You know what’s tattooed on me? I might as well carve my name into my forehead or just show up on Prothero’s doorstep with a dozen roses.”

“Scarlett,” he says, in that tone of voice he used when we were crouching next to the bodies of our friends. Snapping me back to reality. “You don’t have to shave it all.”

“I don’t want to shave any of it,” I say, my voice pitching to a whine. The words leaving my mouth already sound defeated.

“It’s not a matter of want,” he says, and then punches a key on his band. It lights up and a virtual rolls out depicting new government IDs for both of us. We have different names, different backgrounds. Different lives. The only element that retains any truth is our facial identification. At least, mine does. Rabbit looks like a new person now. 

“Couldn’t I just dye my hair?” I ask. “Or find a wig?”

He shakes his head with that grim mouth line and an urge to sock his nose crawls up my arm and curls around my fingers. But I don’t. I pick up the razor instead and grip it furiously. I elbow him out of my way, click the button, set the blades against my hairline and squeeze my eyes shut. When I roll my hand backwards, the razor immediately becomes tangled in my curly hair. I dislodge it and stare at Rabbit as if to say, “told you."

“These will help.” Rabbit digs around in the black bag and comes out with a pair of scissors. 

He grabs a sheath of my hair and closes the scissors around it. The snipping noise rolls another wave of nausea through my belly but I don’t heave this time. I watch helplessly as Rabbit hacks away at all my vanity. Strips away the identity of Scarlett Buford and replaces her with...what was the name on the ID? Juniper Crow. I try to imagine a different person emerging from underneath the seemingly endless tumbles of my hair. A smart, savvy young woman. Maybe she lives in a big house in upstate Washington with her parents, an in-ground pool, and two large dogs. She plans on attending University in the fall to study Theatre. She’s celebrating the end of the secondary school year by vacationing in California with her boyfriend. 

I lose all train of thought when I try to imagine Rabbit as my boyfriend. It’s too implausible. I can only think of losing Len—the blue light dying in her eyes. The blood pooling from her stomach. Her weird beatific smile at the exact moment Clinton shot her. Her face crumpling and her body falling out of my view. The scrape of the rifle trigger against my finger as I squeezed it hard. The horror of Clinton’s skull blowing apart and the shower of—

Stop. Stop thinking about it. 

I try to purge all these thoughts and let my teary eyes follow Rabbit’s quiet movements instead. He works in silence until the bulk of my hair fills the sink directly in front of us, curling tendrils bursting up out of the porcelain like a lion’s mane. My gaze shuffles back and forth between the vial of blood on the sink counter and our reflections in the mirror. Rabbit’s steady, graceful arms and fingers doing their work. The low humming and rocking of the train around us. 

“Len’s gone,” I whisper to him so quiet I don’t think he’ll hear but I secretly, desperately want him to. I need him to feel like I do. 

He pauses in his work and meets my eyes in the mirror—his jaw clenched fiercely.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

I reach out for the scissors and don’t say anything. He hands them to me wordlessly. We’re quiet until my fingers are done fumbling through the sad, short wreck of my hair. It’s cut as close to my scalp as we can manage without having to buzz anything. 

 I try to form the front into something resembling bangs but the best I can pull off is a curling pile of hair, spilling over onto my forehead. The sides are shorter than the top. It’s a confusing, distracting mess but I can say with confidence it doesn’t resemble my previous hairstyle at all. It’s much worse. Maybe it’s something fancy Juniper would get because it’s ironic or old-fashioned or artsy or horrible. At least the tattoo from the Mississippi work camp, the black barcode I haven’t seen in years is hidden under a layer of tiny blonde curls that sprout from my head. 

Rabbit loads up two handfuls of hair and deposits them in the nearest toilet. I do the same and we make quick work of our combined follicles—flushing the sink with water.

“More DNA evidence,” I mutter. 

Rabbit shrugs and holds up his band.

"Say cheese."

I smile beguilingly into the flash, the way I imagine rich Juniper would. He angles the band and takes an image of himself. After a few moments of tinkering with a virtual display, he shows me the finished product.

"Good work Victor Leon." I squint at his newly forged ID. "Your name sounds like a trashy romance villain. I approve."

His mouth folds into a grim line, then he taps the back of his recently shaved neck. 

“Last item on the agenda,” he says and removes a razor blade from the black bag. He also retrieves the sewing kit and sets it on the counter next to the blood vial. His fingers hesitate over the vial and a heaviness creeps into his features. I grab the razor blade and angle it towards the likeliest location for the RFID. I’ve never performed surgery before. My mind suddenly clicks over to The Rosas. They would know what to do here. They would have steely resolve and maybe even intense fascination given such an opportunity.

Overhead the lights cut out briefly, flashing a warning. Seconds later a voice crackles over the intercom system. 

“Now arriving in Portland, Oregon,” the voice murmurs as the train slows to a stop.

“That was fast." Rabbit glances down at his band, which clicks on and displays the time. We’ve been on the rails for about forty five minutes. The time is accurate. 

He pockets the vial of blood. Any little bit of Len he can get his hands on.

“Your surgery will have to wait, this is our stop.” I slip the razor blade back into the black baggy with an overwhelming feeling of relief. I really didn’t want to cut him open. Rabbit tosses the baggy into the pack that he throws possessively over his shoulder. After one last glance around the room, we exit the Commons. 

The loud chatter and chaos on the other side of the door is a jarring surprise. Excited people jam the hallway, fear and worry scratching out anxious octaves in their voices. Just above the din, the thumping pulse of a helocraft and official voices encourage everyone to remain calm. So of course, no one is calm. 

Rabbit and I exchange a quick glance, pop the hoods up on our jackets and proceed in the opposite direction of the flowing human traffic. This results in several elbows to the ribs, a few foot stompings and at least one threat of physical violence. But eventually we emerge on the other side into one of the sleeper cars where no one is sleeping.

I motion to the first empty sleeper and we enter the doors, surveying it for signs of a quick escape. The sleepers house four shelves of beds against the main wall and to the right of these, a window which sits about midway between the ground and the ceiling. The window gap is narrow. It could accommodate Rabbit’s thin frame, but my womanly curves are never gonna make it.

"We have to split up." I’m surprised at how panicked the thought makes me.

"No, you can fit. We can make it through." The twinge of desperation in his voice makes panic swell like a balloon in my stomach. 

I shake my head and we both push the window open. My suspicions are confirmed when Rabbit tosses the pack through the gap first, then hoists himself out. He drops about ten feet and peers up at me through the window opening, concern etched on his features. I attempt to join him but don’t even make it past the upper half of my chest. My ample bosom—which has always been a source of pride—is hindering my escape and putting me in harm’s way. I curse and stick my head out the window to be sure he hears me.

"Meet me at the waterfront fountain. I’ll wait there for an hour," I say.

Then I reach up to slide the window shut. 

"No!"

I throw a fleeting glance down at Rabbit. He reaches out a hand that closes itself into a fist. The look he gives me. The terror in his eyes makes my heart pinch inside my chest.

"I don’t know where that is," he says.

I chew my lip in thought. He has the pack, the tin, the drugs buried in Toto’s belly and now the vial of Len’s blood. I have a single vial of Ecto and a handful of government marked stipend allotments. We can’t separate, not completely. I can’t afford to lose him now. 

"Fine. Front of the train. Fifteen minutes," I concede.

He nods and slips off into the dark—vanishing like an apparition.

I exit the small, cramped room and head across the hall to the sleepers. From there I can assess the chaos at the station and figure out my next move. Overhead a drone screams past and light floods the train car in a swirling pattern. They must be using the floodlights to search for Rabbit. For us. I drop to my knees and say a silent prayer for him. And myself too. We’re both going to need it.